By Foster Nicholas | Sports Writer
Headlined by alley-oop finishes and 25-foot 3-pointers, No. 6 Baylor men’s basketball came away with win No. 400 at the Ferrell Center by a score of 78-60 over Seton Hall on Tuesday night as part of the Big East-Big 12 Battle.
Head coach Scott Drew and the Bears (9-0) now hold the longest win streak in the Power Six. Over the course of 40 minutes, Baylor pilfered from the Pirates (6-3) on the defensive side of the ball and turned the treasures into eye-candy dunks and 3-pointers.
“If you’re a crowd, a part of the Baylor family, coming to games where people love threes and they love dunks; you get both of them this year, and that’s not always the case,” Drew said. “If you like highlights, though, I mean, there’s going to be plenty of Baylor [ESPN] SportsCenter plays this year.”
Eight different Bears finished with a bucket, while four poured in double figures. Senior guard RayJ Dennis led the way with 17 points on 5 of 11 shooting from the floor, while knocking down three 3-pointers. Dennis also brought down five rebounds and led the team with seven assists.
Baylor set the tone early as freshman guard Ja’Kobe Walter drilled his first two 3-pointers. Walter went on to finish with 15 points and four 3-pointers on the evening while tallying five rebounds and three assists.
“I’ve just been working on my shot, especially since the past few games I haven’t been hitting. Just came in and tried to forget about those games,” Walter said. “When I saw one go in, I was just happy, got confidence, my teammates kept looking for me. And I was just blessed to keep knocking them down.”
As the Bears gained early separation, freshman center Yves Missi caused a Ferrell Center eruption. Dennis ran down the court with about eight minutes to play in the first half and tossed a lob high into the air for Missi. The big man leapt into the air and sent the Ferrell Center into a tizzy with a monster finish.
“I’d say he’s a big man’s dream for guards because there’s so much margin of error,” Drew said.
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As time was beginning to expire in the first half, Dennis whipped a pass across the court to redshirt sophomore guard Langston Love in the corner. Love snagged the pass and rattled home the 3-pointer as the buzzer sounded.
Love finished the day with 11 points, his sixth game this year in double figures, and headlined a Baylor bench that put up 19 points.
“Being able to go [to] the bench, when you bring in Josh [Ojianwuna], Caleb [Lohner] and Langston, I think that they really gave us energy [and] juice,” Drew said.
Baylor went into halftime with nine turnovers but still clung to a 42-32 lead. As the second half played out, the Bears only turned the ball over three times in the final 20 minutes.
“We just shared the ball more, we looked at the reads, and we saw from film what we could take and what we couldn’t,” Walter said. “I think in the second half we were just smarter with our passes.”
However, even though the Bears controlled the lead for 38:10 of the 40-minute game, Seton Hall came knocking.
With 13:15 on the clock in the second half, the Pirates only trailed by three points, 50-47, after the Bears went scoreless for over three minutes. But every time Seton Hall made a run, the Bears had an answer.
“They’re absolutely a tough team,” Dennis said. “That’s what basketball is, a game of runs. And I think we’re built to withstand those runs and make runs of our own.”
Soon enough, the Bears were indeed on a run of their own.
Dennis and Walter each strapped 3-pointers before sophomore forward Josh Ojianwuna drove to the rim through contact and embraced a poster dunk with hang time. Suddenly, Baylor held a double-digit lead again, 60-49 with 8:42 to play, and Seton Hall had made only one of its last eight shots while buried in a slump.
The Bears rolled to the 78-60 win. Baylor entered the game as the best team in the nation from 3-point range and kept through to the numbers, going 10 for 22 from deep on Tuesday night.
Baylor will have 10 days off before taking the court again in a neutral-site clash against Michigan State on Dec. 16. Tipoff is scheduled for 1 p.m. at the Little Caesars Arena in Detroit.
